Classics

From SKI Magazine, February 1968

Go to the high places to gain vision and restore your soul. 

Author John Fry describes Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park in British Columbia as a place where the “sky and the world merged ... [and] the cluttered house of my consciousness was swept clean.”

Brochures luring us to the mountains in summer often portray Sybarites soaking themselves in a hotel hot tub at 7,000 feet, maybe after a lung-stretching day of playing tennis or fat-tire biking. Others may be on a golf course or in an outdoor tent at a music concert. Such are the undeniable and not unworthy satisfactions of visiting in summer the places we ski in winter. But here’s a radical thought that I dare to mention at the risk of announcing the least-fashionable idea of the year: Go to the mountains to improve your soul. Millions of people do so throughout the world.

There is much comfort in high hills,     
And a great easing of the heart.
We look upon them, and our nature fills
With loftier images from their life apart.
They set our feet on curves of freedom bent
To snap the circles of our discontent.

So begins a fine, early British book on climbing, extolling the tranquility of mind experienced in high places. Still in my own memory is an astonishingly beautiful hike above treeline, through fields of alpine wildflowers, that I once made from Sunshine to Assiniboine in the Canadian Rockies. As I merged myself into a place where the sky and the world themselves merged, the cluttered house of my consciousness was swept clean.

Going to high places to gain vision and restore the mind is a neglected tradition in America. It wasn’t always so. “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, overcivilized people are beginning to find that going to the mountains is going home … and that mountain parks and preservations are fountains of life,” wrote conservation pioneer John Muir in 1898.

Edwin Bernbaum, the author of Sacred Mountains of the World, calculates that a billion of the world’s people revere the mountains, some cultures regarding them as the home of the gods. “Despite the hardship and suffering, even the fear encountered in the mountains, people return to them again and again,” Bernbaum declares, “seeking something they cannot put into words.”

Trekking in a region near Lhotse, reputed to be Shangri-La, Bernbaum tells how he “descended into the mist to the valley floor and camped in a meadow … We heard the clear voices of birds singing to one another. In the woods around us, drops of bluish water gleamed like diamonds on necklaces of hanging moss … [and] we felt the presence of a majestic snow peak that seemed to rule over the valley … When we came to a spring welling out of the base of a mossy rock, I knelt to drink the water out of my hands, and felt the peace and beauty flow into my body.”

Extracting moral grace from nature—a sensitivity heightened in the mountains—was a notion advanced by one of America’s early nature writers, John Burroughs. “In nature…you are touching the hem of the garment with which the infinite is clothed, and virtue goes out from it to you.”

Unhappily, too few Americans seem ready to receive such virtue. [The late] Andrea Mead Lawrence, America’s first double gold medalist in Olympic skiing and now a supervisor of Mono County in the heart of California’s Sierra Nevada, believes our lack of spiritual identification with the mountains is at the root of our acceptance of so much unsightly suburban development there, and it makes her weep. “God did not make the Sierra Nevada as a lot-and-block subdivision, and we shouldn’t treat our mountain valleys that way,” she says. “For those who have spent our lives in the mountains, they are the wellspring of our passion and our caring.”

In his 1890 book on New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Julius Ward—who never found a word in the dictionary he didn’t like—wrote of the “unconscious exhilaration” he felt as the “mountains entered his soul and raised his life to their level.” Returning from a climb of one of the Presidential peaks, Ward compared his experience to that of Moses, “purged of the false, the untrue and the unreal.”

A contemporary parable may be found in Lost Kingdom of the Himalaya, where narrator John Clark accompanies a Hunza villager into the high country. “Together we crept out on the rim of a great mountain buttress, like flies on the shoulder of God. We rounded a curve, and there suddenly was the valley below us and the great rocks above. The villager sat down. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. ‘Looking at my mountains,’ he murmured. He showed me then the meaning of worship…that our bustling minds must relearn.” 

ISHA president John Fry died peacefully on January 24, 2020, while floating in the warm waters off Vieques Island, two days after his 90th birthday. His obituary appears on page 33. John was a beloved member of the ISHA family and the global ski community, and we’ll honor his legacy as a ski writer and editor by reprinting some of his finest and most unique articles in upcoming issues of Skiing History. This essay was published in the Spring 1997 issue of Snow Country, with a nod from Fry to quotations from the book Around the Roof of the World by his friend Nicholas Shoumatoff.

 

“Yes Bud, I have found a few secrets that help lower my time...”

 

 

The cover of New Love Magazine (February 1948) celebrated the intimacy of riding uphill on the relatively new T-bar, famously known as a He-and-She Stick Artist: Gloria Stoll Karn.

By John Fry

Skiing was a perfect milieu for boy-meets-girl 60 years ago. Four out of seven men and three out of four women were single. Apres-ski they united in in bars redolent with beer and cigarette smoke, or in farmhouse sitting rooms. But during day the prime socializing took place in the lift line. Here skiers routinely waited for 30 minutes and as long as an hour on a holiday weekend -- plenty of time to talk, observed ski writer Morten Lund, “to meet a member of the opposite sex, get infatuated, engaged and plan the wedding.”

The chances of agreeable encounters vastly amplified when ski areas replaced rope tows and J-bars with T-bars, known as “he and she sticks.” Especially desirable was a wobbly track, or one that slanted across the fall line, since it brought the riders into greater physical intimacy.

Even one the T-bar’s drawbacks could be turned to social advantage. If a tall and a short person were paired, their unequal heights would cause one or the other to fall off. Consequently, the lift attendant sought to pair people of equal height, a dimension that also happens to work well in long-term relationships. The notoriously short Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who skied at Belleayre in New York’s Catskill Mountains, was in the liftline one day awaiting a suitable rider to go with. Eventually, a shortish man showed up, and they rode up together. He later became Dr. Ruth’s husband.

The boy-meets-girl opportunities absolutely shot ahead in the 1950s with the switch from single to double-seater chairlifts. Instead of sitting silently alone wondering how to meet the gorgeous gal he’d seen in the liftline, a fellow could now actually sit next to one on the chair. For the skilful Romeo, a 10-minute ride  was more than enough time to inveigle a gal into joining a beer and ski songfest at the end of the day.

Alas, the opportunities for intimate conversation have lessened as lift riding time has shortened, and the number of chair occupants has grown from three to four, to six and even to eight skiers and snowboarders. Not a few of them may have pulled their dating-app equipped IPhones out of their parka pocket, seeking a date.

 

On a Jackson Hole ski day with Olympic gold medalist Pepi Stiegler in 1986, the author ponders the soul of skiing.

By Peter Shelton

Waiting for the photographers, Pepi Stiegler and I had plenty of time to chat. Pepi is a forthright Austrian, taut and youthful at 49, the long-time director of skiing at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We had just met. At the top of the tram we stared off into the early morning distance and with our poles poked deep blue holes in the snow.

We talked about the ski business, about insurance and out-of-bounds, about lift lines and bottom lines. His question was not so much for me as for himself and even, should they care to listen, for the mute, towering Tetons. He asked, “Where is the romance?”

It caught me by surprise. Surely, I thought, a man who skis like water flowing finds romance in every turn. Surely, a man who has earned Olympic gold and silver and bronze, a man who has designed his life so that he can ski every day of the winter at the biggest, steepest mountain in America, a man revered for his skiing prowess, and his companionship—surely this man is sought out by Romance itself.

And yet I understood, too. Something was not right. A metaphorical yawn (Stephen King’s next thriller?) had surrounded skiing for the last few years. Something was conspiring to dull the glow of the most romantic sport I have known. What was it?

It wasn’t long ago that skiing fit to a tee the dictionary definition of a romance: “heroic or marvelous achievements, colorful events or scenes, chivalrous devotion, unusual or even supernatural experiences.” A love affair, in other words. An insatiable fascination. A never-ending adventure heading inevitably toward poetry.

At first I put it off to age, mine and Pepi’s. “Baby Boomers Turn 40!” You read about it everywhere. There is probably a chapter in Passages called “Mid-Life Crisis Number 12: The Tarnished Sheen of Atomic Arcs.” Pepi had said as much when he asked, between pokes, if maybe we had done it all, if perhaps the quiver of anticipation had quieted to a snore.

Maybe he’s done it all, I thought. I certainly haven’t. And yet his point was true.

Experience robs the imagination. I remembered a time when it was almost all imagination. Early in my ski-teaching career my father gave me a book called Ski Fever, published in 1936 when his ski dreams were still only dreams. That year alpine events were introduced in the Munich Winter Olympics. Dick Durrance finished eighth in the slalom for the U.S. — “only 26.7 seconds behind [Germany’s Franz] Pfnür.” Skiing bloomed in exuberant innocence. Author Norman D. Vaughan: “More and more men and women are taking to the winged boards. [Winged boards—I loved it!] Boys and girls are eating it up. Why? Because, as any skier will tell you, the mastery of skis, in whatever degree, brings an exhilaration unsurpassed…There are a thousand grades of skiers from kanonen (top-notch racers) down. Though you may be the humblest of dub-beginners, there are others like you. Plenty of company in this new sport that is taking the country by storm!”

Standing there with Pepi, I remembered the book’s blue-tinted photos, the skiers in baggy pants and pole baskets the size of LPs schussing low and straight through the powder. And I remembered the feeling of being the humblest dub-beginner (in 1956), skidding and crashing and loving it for the miraculous tug of gravity, for the bite of low-oxygen cold, for the heroism in surviving another rope tow up the hill.

I remembered my first taste of real speed, soaring through the wide-mouthed gullies at Mammoth Mountain. I remembered the adrenaline surge as I followed, terrified and trusting my ski school mentors, off the cornice at Bear Valley. I remembered the slow whooooosh of that first deep powder turn at Alta. I remembered those moments as vividly as the starbursts of falling in love. Why didn’t I feel the same way about the turns I made yesterday or the ones I was about to make today? Was that it then? Was it as simple as a love affair grown too familiar?

Or was it something else? Not just my age but the age, the 1980s: baseline market research, a hot tub in every room, accountants at the helm in Aspen, brochure reality (“snowy nights and bluebird days”), bumps in the backcountry, “money for nothin’ and your chicks for free”?

My mind drifted through a litany of Romance Squelchers. Number One: the risk/liability/litigation cycle plaguing American skiing and indeed society as a whole. Ski areas must now do everything in their power to douse ski fever. State law defines what is and isn’t out-of-bounds. Insurance premium dollars match the number of crystals in a cubic meter of Sierra snowpack.

Read the back of your lift ticket. It says skiing is risky, potentially deadly, business and you are legally accepting responsibility. But, in fact, ski companies can leave no twig unpruned. Not since the case of James Sunday v. Stratton Mountain in 1977 decided that a ski area (and that blasted twig) was at fault for a novice skier’s paralyzing fall. The immediate result was a tripling of lift ticket prices. And a regrettable culture shift. “Skier Takes Tumble, Romance Held Liable.”

Pepi told me about a man who came raving into his ski school office. “He was so pissed off. The weather had been bad, and he was just screaming at me: ‘Look, I saved all this money for a week’s vacation!” It pisses me off. How have people become so conditioned to expect what they do?”

Americans and their lawyers and their insurance companies want no-risk skiing. Or perhaps more accurately, they want their skiing and someone to blame should anything go wrong. To the extent they are getting what they want, the essence of skiing, of being on your own on a mountain in winter, is diminished. I rest my case.

Number Two: supermarket ticket sales. Buying your discounted lift ticket at King Soopers is about as romantic as a night watching “The Love Boat” on the tube. Alone. Call me an elitist, but I want my ski day to be as far removed from the everyday washday miracle as possible. How far we have come from the elegance of early Sun Valley!

“Romance Discounted, Your Price: Cheap.”

This is just one example of desperate commercialism born of a flat market. Skiing isn’t growing. So existing areas are competing like mad for a bigger share of a static pie. Come-ons like “guaranteed skiing” months ahead of natural winter may be good for Thanksgiving reservations, but they’re not good at creating life-long skiers. The product is not a good one. While important, snowmaking and grooming have downsides: when you bulldoze all the interesting shapes out of the way so you can lay down your computerized snow and run the cats over it, you risk reducing the experience to homogenized, lowest common denominator skiing. Adventure-free skiing. The best-surprise-is-no-surprise skiing.

Number Three: music piped onto lodge decks, and worse, out onto the slopes. Puhleaze! Must we mall the mountains, too? Give me credit for the tunes in my head. Or leave me the silence to tune into the music of the spheres. “Romance Wants to Dance, Jilted By Punk.”

Number Four: real estate. And this one could maybe jump up a notch or two on the charts. The cold, modern truth is this: real estate, not your lift ticket, pays for mountain development. One insider at a Colorado resort told me recently, “Skiing has become a by-product of what we do.” Skiing is not the raison d’être it once was. Today it is an amenity. Like hot tubs. And cable TV.

Last spring I met a young professional who told me about his first day skiing at an up-and-coming resort. Aglow from the exercise and the mountain air, he sat down for a beer at a local tavern. But before he could touch lips to cold foam, a stranger sidled up to him and said, “Hey, let me buy ya that beer,” handed him a card, and proceeded to barrage him with condo listings. “Realtor Mugs Romance, Sells Dream.”

Number Five: ski area food. Most ski area food is bad. Overpriced and bad. By contrast the food on Swiss mountains is reason enough to book an Alpine vacation. Why can’t we do better at home? Could it have anything to do with the fact that an American ski area is a monopoly granted by the U.S. Forest Service (at least in the West)? That a single corporate entity provides the uphill transportation, snowmaking, ski patrol, ski school, food service, day care, parking, and so on? How much does an oil company, or a film studio, or a dog chow conglomerate know about exquisite food? Or the ambience necessary to enjoy it? How badly do they want to know? “Romance Coughs Up $7.50, Bites Burger.”

Increasingly, big corporations are diversifying into the ski business. The Ernie Blakes (Taos) and Dave McCoys (Mammoth), and the feisty one-man/one-mountain pioneer era they represent, are vanishing. No less an authority than Vail’s new owner, George Gillett, whose holdings include 17 newspapers, nine TV stations, and the nation’s largest lean beef packaging firm, is worried about corporate bigness at the helm in skiing. “Frankly, I’m concerned,” he told the Vail Daily. “The bigger, the more corporate, the more formal the infrastructure, the farther we get from the needs of the customer.” “Romance Takeover Bid, Fun Merger Rumored.”

Vail is banking on nine new high-speed quad chairs to provide what they believe the customer wants: efficiency, perceived value for the dollar, the elimination of lift lines, a faster ride to the top. Early indications are that they are right, and other areas will follow suit. But this only exacerbates a condition described to me by Alta’s Alf Engen: too many ski edges scraping a finite swath of snow. “Roons the skiing,” Alf said. In his mind, the quality of the experience “underfoot” was paramount.

The quads are also a symptom of an anti-romance plague my wife, Ellen, delicately refers to as “pumping vertical.” These days people seem to want experiences they can count, check off, balance out. Quantity in a world where quality’s gone fuzzy. The concrete (biggest, best, most) as opposed to the enlightening (so ‘60s) or the ethereal (seriously unmanly). As skiing accelerates into a whirlpool of numbers (41 minutes from airport to slopes, 2,640 skiers per hour at 995 feet per minute rising 1,829 vertical feet in 540 seconds to our 736 acres of new terrain!), Romance’s life jacket may not be big enough.

Standing there with Pepi, I concluded that people just didn’t fall in love with skiing the way they used to, not with all the messy responsibilities and commitments that falling in love entails. People want their skiing guaranteed, packaged, neat and clean—no storms, no tears—just like the brochure promises. I hand you the money; you provide the thrill.

I was bummed, my reverie dark and limitless. Then the photographers, locals Wade McKoy and Bob Woodall, stepped off the tram, and we were off toward an early morning place they hoped would still harbor some untracked snow. We walked, traversed out through a huge porcelain bowl, walked some more. The sun grew warm. We stopped to shed layers. Silence washed over our movements, while inside heartbeats pumped strongly and our breathing came deep and full.

Angling up a steep ravine, our track intersected a line of cliff shadow. On one side it was too bright to look at without glasses; on the other side it was as blue and secretive as an ice cave. Tracks of a snowshoe hare, like a zipper, dashed across the blue-white fabric. Off to our right the striated, layer-cake cliffs of Cody Peak showed slivers of uninterrupted snow: Four Shadows Chute, No Shadows, Once Is Enough. Couloirs of the imagination, they were not for us this day, but maybe one day when everything is right for the walking and for the controlled elevator ride back down.

Walking. This place was farther away than I had thought. But it didn’t matter; I had reached that fine space where the track ahead, the breathing and the sliding of one foot in front of the other, combine in a kind of ecstatic soup. The worlds within and without are the same. I remembered a time I’d struggled to describe to Ellen about a particularly good walk on skis. She interrupted and said, “I understand. I know why you do it. It’s a ritual. It’s a monk’s high, one where you understand everything and where there’s no need to ask the question why.”

At last, we were there. McKoy and Woodall slipped ahead over a rounded knoll cut in half by that same sharp-edged shadow. The sunny half sparkled like a sequined dress over a shapely hip.

The camera guys called up that they were ready. They wanted us to ski side-by-side then split around Wade, as close as we could make it. Pepi and I looked at each other and decided that we would start left, pole plant, and swing right.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

We eased into the pitch. Snow crystals, sucked dry by the night old, hissed at our passing.

“Hup!” Pepi signaled our direction change, and the metronome was set: plant, hup; plant, hup. Snow flew to the sides like diaphanous curtains. Snow underfoot turned us, cushioned our landings, sent us off again as if from a trampoline. I didn’t see Pepi as much as feel him, his momentum and mine springing from side to side in unison. We swept in on McKoy like birds of prey, covered him with cold mist—just what he wanted —and stopped two more turns down the hill.

“YESSSS!” came the photographer’s animalian hoot.

“Untracked snow,” said Pepi, grinning, reaffirming the obvious. “There is romance there.”

Yes. Untracked. Romance requires possibility, anticipation, followed by the rush of action, the filling of that eager void.

We skied on, brothers in exploration, poking into little forest bowers for a spotlit jump here, a banked cutback there. Pepi was a marvel to watch: economy of motion born of so much time on skis, the gyro-like balance, the touch. He was soft when he needed to be but also revealed a penchant for exploding deep snow pillows so that a slow-arcing shower seemed always to hang about his descent.

I not only wanted to ski like that when I was 49, I wanted powerfully to still be skiing at 79, like the smooth old geezers I’d seen at Mount Bachelor, in Oregon, dressed in timeless woolens Ralph Lauren would kill for, wrapping their big slow turns around a love of movement, and the home mountain. For some reason, this thought was entwined with a potent desire to ski with my own kids, to spark them and warm myself in the light of their uncomplicated enthusiasm.

Nearing the traverse that would take us back to the groomed runs, we ducked under one last set of spruce branches and into a surprise meadow. Even McKoy and Woodall hadn’t known it was there. It gleamed in the sun like an apparition, like a reward, like one of William Blake’s shining etchings of heaven. No cameras this time. To each his own unencumbered bounding.

Pepi said, “I guess it’s the attitude. It’s as romantic as you make it. We’re blessed to be able to lead people into this enjoyment. We should appreciate it, too.”

Amen, Pepi. And with that we let our tips slip into the pull, as if it were 1936, as if it were the very first time, and left all earthly worries behind.

This article was originally published in Powder Magazine (September 1986) and is reprinted here with permission of the author.

This Glossary of Historical Ski Terms is from the book "Story of Modern Skiing," by John Fry, published in 2006 by University Press of New England, 380 pages, 90 illustrations, $24.95."

The author is indebted to Seth Masia, to Doug Pfeiffer, and to the editors of the Professional Ski Instructors of America Alpine Technical Manual for their help in assembling this Glossary.  

Acclimatize, Acclimate. Adapt to a change in altitude, ideally done in stages to reduce physiological stress.

Alpine. When the A is capitalized, the word Alpine relates to the Alps. In lower case, alpine may refer to anything mountainous like the Alps, and specifically applies to downhill skiing, as contrasted with nordic (cross-country and jumping). Downhill, slalom, giant slalom and Super G are alpine competitions.

Alpine Combined. A downhill and a slalom race either held intentionally as a combined event, or the linking of two races on the calendar to produce a combined result. Result of a combined competition was once derived from mathematically computing FIS points. Today it is done by adding up the times.

Angulation. Any movement or positioning of the leg or body to roll the ski onto a higher edge angle relative to the snow. Before the introduction of higher plastic boots, ski instructors assumed that this could best be achieved by angling the torso down the hill (or toward the outside of the turn) , at the same time as the hip and knees were angled into the mountain. This was known as the comma position. The improved control provided by modern boots has rendered the comma position obsolete. Angulation can now be achieved with the lower leg and emphasized with the hip, independent of upper body position.

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). The knee ligament that connects the femur (thigh bone) with the tibia (shin bone) and prevents the forward movement of the tibia on the femur. The posterior cruciate ligament prevents backward movement of the tibia on the femur. ACL tears became a common ski injury after 1980, as a result of changed boot design, ski shape and binding height combined with the skier’s feet-apart stance.

Anticipation. The skier’s upper body anticipated the direction of the coming turn, acting as an anchor for the lower body to turn against. As the tension was  released (muscles relax) and the skier “let go” of the old turn, the legs realigned with the upper body and started the turn.

Arlberg. A mountainous region of western Austria encompassing the classic ski resorts of St. Anton, St. Christof, Lech, Zurs. Home of famed ski teacher Hannes Schneider, who formulated the Arlberg technique, and of Stefan Kruckenhauser, who popularized wedeln. 

Arlberg Strap. A leather strap that was wrapped around the boot and attached to the ski to prevent it from running away when the binding released.

Arlberg Technique. A series of movements taught in progression, starting with the snowplow and progressing to turns made with the skis parallel, developed by Hannes Schneider. (See Arlberg, above.)

Arete (French). Sharp mountain ridge with steep sides.

Backscratcher. While airborne, the skier’s knees are bent so as to force the ski tips to drop sharply downward. The tails of the skis may even scratch one’s back. Also called a Tip Drop.

Backside. The backside of the snowboard is the side where the rider’s heels sit. The backside of a snowboarder is the side where the rider’s back faces.

Bathtub. See Sitzmark.

Bear trap. A binding that did not allow release. It had fixed toe irons, and the heel was often lashed to the skis with a leather strap, long thong or laniere.

Bevel. Modifying the edge of a ski so that it forms something other than a perfect 90-degree angle.  The ski edge has two surfaces: the base edge contiguous to the ski's sole, and the side edge meeting the ski's sidewall. A beveled base edge is "softened" by about one degree -- in effect it's recessed relative
to the sole surface -- so the ski rolls more smoothly on and off the edge. A bevelled side edge -- sharpened to 1, 2 or 3 degrees of acute angle -- can
help a racer to hold a more aggressive line on ice.

Biathlon. A competition among rifle-bearing skiers originating in the 18th Century, which rewards skill in skiing cross-country and marksmanship. Results are computed in time. Minutes are subtracted for errant shots. Biathlon has a separate sports governing body recognized by the International Olympic Committee.

Binding platform. In the days of carved "ridgetop" skis of hickory and ash, it was common to provide a flat, and usually slightly raised, platform at the ski's center for mounting the binding and boot. Beginning with international standards for bindings (see DIN), the binding mounting zone on the ski was defined as flat platform or plate designed to anchor the binding screws. In 1989, World Cup champion Marc Girardelli began using the Derbyflex plate, a solid aluminum plate glued to a thick sheet of neoprene rubber, inserted between the ski and the binding. The platform provided an additional inch of leverage relative to the ski's edge for more edging power, and additional boot clearance so that the ski can be pitched onto a higher edge angle.  The leveraging power from the elevated platform also leverages the power of forces coming back into the knee from the snow. To reduce knee injuries among racers, the FIS limited the total "stack height" -- the distance between the snow and the sole of the boot -- to a maximum of 55mm. A typical high-performance recreational binding today has a stack height of 45mm; the ski itself may be about 15mm thick.

Blindside. In snowboarding, when the rider approaches or lands “blind” to the direction of travel.

Boarder Cross. Snowboarders race through turns and obstacles and jumps in heats of 4-6 riders, starting simultaneously.  The term derives from a similar format used in motorcycling – motocross.

Bonk. In snowboarding, to hit a non-snow object hard.  

Boilerplate. A glazed covering of solid ice on a trail, usually produced after rain or after wet snow freezes.

Boogying. To ski the bumps all out -- a 1970s hot dog skiing term.

Canting.  The process of making adjustments – primarily to bindings and boots – in order to improve the alignments of feet, knees, hips and upper body. The alignment is typically done mechanically by a footbed in the boot, and/or by adjusting the boot’s cuff.

Carving. Turning the skis by causing them to travel on edge with minimal lateral slipping or skidding. The tail of the ski is on a forward moving path that follows the tip of the ski. A pure carved turn, whether on skis or on a snowboard, is defined by its leaving a clean, elliptical track on the snow.

Camber. The arch built into a ski from tip to tail. Camber was created to generate even pressure on the snow along the length of the ski. A “stiff” ski resists being de-cambered or pressed flat.

Catwalk. Narrow road often built to enable wheeled machines to ascend the mountain in summer and snowcats in winter. Catwalks double as ski trails in winter, characterized by long traverses that link to another trail, a lift or to another section of the resort.

Center Line. A conceptual model created by the Professional Ski Instructors of America “for selecting appropriate movement patterns under a variety of circumstances.”

Chattering. The ski’s edges grip on ice but rebound, vibrating and chattering -- as opposed to carving or skidding smoothly.

Christie. A contraction of the word Christiania, describing a turn made with the skis parallel (a parallel christie), as distinct from a turn made with the skis partially in a stem or vee configuration (known as a stem Christie), or a turn made wholly with the skis stemmed (known as a stem turn, snowplow or wedge turn). In post-20th Century ski schools, the term christie may denote a skidded parallell turn, as opposed to a carved turn. 

Cirque. A bowl-like shape, typically at the head of a valley, created by a former glacier.

Concave Running Surface. A frequent defect for many years in the manufacture and curing of fiberglass and plastic skis produced in molds. The concave ski’s bottom resists turning. The defect is corrected by flat-filing or machine-grinding the skis to bring the edges down to the level of the running surface.

Convex. The opposite condition of concave. A convex base feels unstable to the skier, doesn’t track accurately, and sideslips on ice. In the factory, when a new ski receives its final grind before the resin is fully cured, it can be delivered to a ski shop concave in the shovel and tail, and convex in the middle.

Corn snow. Pellet-sized particles formed from repetitive thawing, refreezing, and recrystallizing of the snow. Corn snow has a texture that facilitates turning and causes skiers to feel as if they’re skiing on ball bearings.

Cornice. Overhang of snow and ice typically found on a high ridge. Dangerous  skiing to the skier who stands for long on one, and extreme skiing to those who jump off one.

Counter rotation. Simultaneously twisting the upper body in one direction (usually opposite to the direction of travel), and the lower body in another direction.

Cross-Country Relay. See Team Event.

Crossover. Swinging one ski around the other so that the feet point in opposite directions, then extricating the standing ski to re-align itself to the other.

Crud, Breakable Crust. A condition in which the snow surface has frozen into hard crust over soft snow underneath. Crud often refers to settling snow that has been cut up by skiers. When the skier’s weight is sufficient to break through the crust, but unpredictably, the resulting condition is difficult to ski.

Daffy. An early freestyle stunt, the daffy was a mid-air split – the skier extended one leg forward, the other rearward. If airborne long enough, the skier could sky-walk – that is switch legs fore and aft two or three times. The term daffy, according to freestyle pioneer Doug Pfeiffer, originated in the idea of the stunt  being daft, or slightly crazy.

Damping. Quality in a ski which prevents it from vibrating excessively, a problem with early metal skis. Skis insufficiently damped are unstable, and may chatter on ice. An over-damp ski, on the other hand, feels heavy and sluggish, doesn’t glide easily on wet snow especially, and tends not to rise to the surface in heavy powder. 

Deep-crouch Christie. While traversing at a comfortable speed the skier suddenly assumes a low crouch position. Taking advantage of this unweighting movement, he turns the skis toward the fall line while keeping the weight on the inside-of-the-turn ski and letting the outside one drift off as if about to do a gymnast’s split. Once the desired new direction is obtained, a normal skiing posture is resumed. Obsolete.

DIN Setting. Every binding has an adjustable release setting which determines the torque required to release the skier in a fall. Beginning in 1979, bindings used a standard scale to measure release values. The standard, DIN, stands for Deutsche Industrie Normen -- German Industrial Standards. The number,  usually visible in a tiny panel on the toepiece, theoretically represents the torque in decanewtons per degree to release the binding toe. The higher the number, the greater the force required to release. An expert recreational skier might set his binding at 8; a beginner, depending on weight and strength, much lower, say 3. The setting of the binding’s heel piece is proportional to the toe setting at a ratio determined by the manufacturer.

Down-unweighting. A lightening of the pressure of the skis on the snow made by a sudden dropping of the skier’s body. (See up-unweighting.)

Fakie. In snowboarding, to ride backwards without facing the direction of travel; also Switch.

Fall Line. Line down the hill that gravity would direct a rolling or falling object. The steepest or shortest line. A sequence of ski turns is typically made by a skier crossing back and forth across the fall line.  

FIS. Federation Internationale de Ski, the International Ski Federation, made up of almost a hundred national ski federations around the world, headquartered at Oberhofen/Thunersee, Switzerland.

Flying Sitzmark. In deep snow, with a modicum of speed, the skier launched  airborne from between both poles, kicked the skis forward and vertical, typically  in an X-configuration, and landed with his rear end first in the deep stuff, leaving a giant sitzmark in the snow.

Four-way Skier. One who competed in downhill, slalom, cross-country and jumping. The four-way champion was often called Skimeister. (See Skimeister.)

Frontside. The frontside of the snowboard is the side where the rider’s toes sit.

Grab. To hold the edge of the snowboard with one or both hands while airborne.

Halfpipe. A vertical U-shaped structure sculpted from snow. Snowboarders and skiers use the opposing walls of the halfpipe to get air and perform tricks as they travel downhill. At ski areas, specially designed grooming machines are used to make halfpipes.

Jib. In snowboarding, to ride on something other than snow --- e.g. rails, trees, garbage cans, logs.

Garland. A teaching exercise used to develop skill in unweighting and edging the skis. The skis are alternately slipped downhill and traversed, without the skier making a turn.

Gate event. Refers to a slalom or giant slalom race. A gate or technical skier specializes in slalom and giant slalom, in contrast to the speed competitions of downhill and Super G.

Gelandesprung. A powerful jump off a bump or a built-up jump, executed by the skier using both poles and often spreading his legs in mid-air.

Geschmozell, Geschmozzle. A downhill competition, in which all the racers started at the same time. The practice was abandoned for most of the 20th Century, but was revived with the popularity early in the 21st Century of skier-cross and boarder-cross races.

Goofy, Goofy-Footed. In snowboarding, riding with the right foot in front instead of the left foot, which is the normal stance

Graduated Length Method (GLM). A system of teaching in which the pupil progressed from shorter to longer skis.

Hairpin. In slalom, two gates set vertically down the hill and close together.

Heel side. The edge of the snowboard under the rider’s heels.

Herringbone. A technique for climbing the hill by putting the skis on edge in a vee-configuration, with the tips fanned outward. The skier walks up the hill on alternating feet while edging to avoid slipping backwards. The pattern left in the snow resembles the skeleton of a fish.

High Back Boot. See Jet Sticks.

Huck. In snowboarding, freeskiing and a variety of other sports, to fling the body into the air -- that is, to launch a jump. A huckfest is a big-air contest, formal or informal. 

Inside ski. In a turn, the skis describe an arc or partial circumference of a circle. The inside ski is the one closer to the circle’s center. At the start of the turn it is the downhill ski; at the weight transfer it becomes the unweighted ski, and at the turn’s conclusion, it has become the uphill ski.

IOC. International Olympic Committee is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. The IOC recognizes the FIS as the official governing body for the sports of skiing and snowboarding.

ISHA. International Skiing History Association publishes a bimonthly journal, Skiing History (formerly Skiing Heritage), and operates the most extensive website about the sport’s history. Office and subscription services at the U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in Ishpeming, Mich.

Jet Sticks, Jet Stix. Beginning around 1966, the French introduced an aggressive style of slalom skiing called avalement, which depended in part on storing energy in the stiff tail of the ski, then releasing it for acceleration. To aid in loading the tail, racers began experimenting with ways to build up the back
of their leather and plastic boots, using tongue depressors, aluminum plate, fiberglass, duct tape -- anything that fell to hand.  By 1969, most boot manufacturers responded by offering plastic "spoilers" to build up the back of the boot.  An aftermarket option was Jet Stix, a set of spoilers with a buckle strap which could be attached to any pair of classic ankle-height boots.

Kicker, Kicker Jump. Steeply built jump designed to hurtle the freestyle aerialist vertically into the air, making possible flips and various inverted aerial stunts. By contrast, the lip of a classic nordic jump is designed to maximize the jumper’s horizontal distance.

Klister. An extremely sticky or tacky wax enabling cross country skis to grip and glide on warm, wet or frozen granular spring snow. 

Kofix. One of the early brand names for a polyethylene laminate bonded on to the ski’s base to form its running surface.

Langlauf. German word for cross-country skiing.

Laniere. Shorter version of the long thong (see below).

Long Thong. A leather strap used by racers and good skiers until the 1960s to hold the foot securely on the ski and to strengthen the leather boot’s lateral support of the ankle. As long as six feet and wrapped around the boot, the long thong attached to steel rings on the sides of the ski, or it was threaded through a mortise drilled through the wooden ski under the foot.

Lift Line. A line of skiers waiting to get on a lift. Long lift lines are synonymous with waiting a long time in the lift line. The term lift line also refers to the cut through the trees where the lift ascends the mountain.

Massif. A mass or group of summits.

Mid-entry Boot. A design usually incorporating an overlap lower shell to provide accurate shell fit, and a hinged upper cuff that opens wide for easy entry and exit. Mid-entry boots were aimed at intermediate skiers who wanted a more precise fit than was available with rear-entry boots, but who didn't want to wrestle with the stiff flaps of an overlap racing boot. (See also overlap boot, and rear-entry boot.)

Mogul. A bump formed as a result of skiers repeatedly turning in the same place.

Moraine. A ridge formed of boulders, rocks and gravel pushed downhill or aside by a glacier and left behind after the glacier's retreat. A terminal moraine appears at the end of the glacier; lateral moraines at its sides.

NSAA, National Ski Areas Association. A trade association of more than 400 mostly U.S. ski areas, headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado.

NSPS, National Ski Patrol System. Association of ski patrolmen and women, headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado.

Nordic Combined. The result of competitors racing cross-country and jumping. Distance and style in the jumping event and times in the cross-country event, were converted into points. Beginning in 1968 in Norwegian meets, and then in the mid 1980s in international meets, the finish order in the jumping event established the starting order in the cross-country race. The first man crossing the finish line in the cross-country race wins the Combined.

Off-piste. Terrain that is not on a prepared slope. See piste.

Outside ski. (See inside ski.)

Overlap boot.  A plastic boot into which the foot is inserted as it would be into a conventional work boot or old-fashioned leather ski boot -- that is, through the top of the cuff.  Overlap boots typically consist of a lower shell with overlapping flaps over the instep, which are closed tightly around the foot with over-center buckles. A hinged upper cuff with overlapping flaps in front of the lower shin closes tightly around the ankle and lower leg with over-center buckles and velcro straps for maximum control of a high-performance ski. The stiff plastic flaps can be difficult to flex for entry and exit.

Piste. French word for trail or track or groomed slope.

Platterpull, Poma lift. A stick with a round, flat disk is attached at its other end to a moving steel cable. To ride uphill, the skier inserts the stick between his or her legs, with the flat disk placed behind his or her derriere. The other end of the stick mechanically grabs the moving cable and the rider is pulled along the snow uphill. The platterpull is often called a Poma lift, after the name of its inventor Pomagalski.

Polish Donut. In freestyle, a variant of the Worm Turn. Skier, usually while traversing, suddenly sat down to the side of the skis, raised them sufficiently to clear the snow, and spun around in a full circle before continuing.

Pre-jump. A technique for reducing the tendency to become airborne when confronting a bump or terrain irregularity. The skier jumps before reaching the bump or drop-off, skims over its top and lands on the downhill side.

PSIA, Professional Ski Instructors of America. National association of certified ski instructors, headquartered in Lakewood, Colo.

Rappel. Descending a mountain on a rope using braking devices. In English, it translates as "to slow" or "brake." German: abseil. Frequently misspelled as "repel."

Rear-entry boot. A plastic boot into which the foot was inserted through a "door" or flap at the back. The main shell was seamless, and the rear flap was  secured with over-center buckles or ratcheting straps. The advantage of the rear-entry boot was that it was easy and quick to get in and out of. The disadvantage was that the shell didn't close accurately around the foot. Aggressive skiers and magazine testers found the rear-entry boot inadequate for performance skiing, and it went from the most widely sold boot in the 1980s to one that is almost unavailable in shops.

Reuel (Royal) or Flying Christie. Moving in a traverse, the skier picks up the lower ski and angles it downhill toward the fall line. The turn is done with the weight entirely on the inside or uphill ski, the opposite of what is considered “normal” skiing. For greater spectator effect, the last ski to leave the snow is raised into various positions such as a T-position or back-scratcher. Named for the freestyle pioneer Fritz Reuel (pron. royal).
 

Schuss, Schussing. To ski without making turns or checking speed. From the German word meaning gun shot, rush, rapid movement.

SIA. SnowSports Industries America, formerly Ski Industries America, a trade association of equipment and clothing manufacturers and distributors, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.

Shaped Skis. Skis with an emphatic or exaggerated sidecut. Over a period of several years since the 1990s, “shaped” skis have come to be the norm and represent the bulk of current ski sales. Future technological advances could change this in unforeseeable ways.

Sidecut. The linear curved side shape of a ski that facilitates its turning when the ski is on edge. Sidecut, or side camber, causes a ski, viewed from the top or bottom, to resemble a wasp shape. It is wider toward the tip or shovel of the ski, narrow at the waist, and flares again at the tail.

Short Swing. A series of short, tight turns executed down the fall line. Called wedeln in German and godille in French.

Shred. In snowboarding, to tear up the terrain.

Sitzmark. A term used to describe the depression in the snow left by a fallen skier. 

Skier Cross. A giant slalom type sprint with bumps and mounded curves, in which a half-dozen competitors start simultaneously (see Geschmozzel), and the winner crosses the finish line first. Top finishers from each heat move on to the next round.  The event is patterned after motocross racing.

Skier-day, Skier-visit. One skier or snowboarder participating one day at a ski area. The skier-day is the most common measure used by ski areas to measure the volume of their business.

Skijoring. A skier holding a rope is pulled along the snow by a horse, snowmobile or four-wheel vehicle. Popular activity in the 1930s.

Ski Flying. Ski jumping on a jumping hill rated greater than 120 meters. On March 20, 2005, Finnish ski flyer Matti Hautamaki jumped 235.5 meters, a distance of 772.7 feet.

Skimeister. German word meaning an all-round proficient skier in both alpine and nordic. A skimeister was the winner of a four-way competition involving slalom, downhill, cross country and jumping. (See Four-way). The term Snowmeister was used in 1995 to describe the winner of a competition involving skiing and snowboarding.

Serac. A tower of ice, found among glaciers, and often spectacular in appearance.

Scree. Rocky debris on mountainsides.

Sick. Expression for something radically good.

Slab. Layer of compacted or frozen snow that creates the potential snow lying on top of it to avalanche.

Slow Dog Noodle. Skier rode up a steep side of a mogul to dissipate speed while assuming an exaggerated sitting back position. At the crest of the mogul and while still crouching, with skis now balanced directly on the crest, the skier swiveled the skis. The slower the motion, the more perfect the execution.
Snowplow, Wedge. Going straight down the hill or making slow turns with the skis in a vee configuration -- tips pointed in, tails fanned out.

Steepness, Pitch. The gradient of a slope’s steepness can be determined by two measures – degrees or percent. Percentage – the figure commonly used by ski areas -- is determined by dividing the vertical height of the slope by its horizontal distance. For a hill that drops 20 vertical feet and projects out by 100 feet, the division yields .20 and the hill is said to have a 20% gradient, equal to a steepness of 11 degrees. A hill with a 60-foot drop and projecting out 100 feet has a 60% grade and a 31-degree steepness. A 100% slope is 45 degrees steep, dropping one foot for every horizontal foot. Beyond that steepness, snow has difficulty holding and only the most extreme skiing is performed. About 70 percent of the terrain at ski areas falls between 15% and 40% of grade, according to the ski area design consultant, the late Jim Branch.

Stem, Stemming. Technique for slowing speed. (See snowplow, Christie.)

Super-Diagonal. A 1940s rubber strap that attached to hooks on the ski’s sidewall and that stretched around the ankle to hold the boot heel firmly in place.

Switch. In snowboarding, to ride with the tail of the board in front.

Team event. The oldest team event in skiing is the cross country relay race involving four competitors, with men racing a 10-kilometer leg and women 5 kilometers. In the Olympics and FIS World Championships, all members of the first, second and third-place relay teams win medals. Beginning in 1982, team competitions were introduced in jumping and Nordic Combined.

Technical racer. See Gate event.

Telepherique. French word for an aerial tramway and cable car. Most telepheriques are jigbacks, in which two large cabins are suspended from cables; as one goes up, the other comes down. 

Telemark turn. The outside ski of the turn is advanced forward and is stemmed, with the knee bent, causing the skis to change direction. Requires use of bindings that allow the skier’s heel to be raised. 

Three Sixty. An airborne skier doing a complete 360-degree rotation.

Tip Drop. See Backscratcher.  

Tip Roll. The skier traversed the slope, and with both poles held close together he suddenly jabbed them into the snow on the uphill side of the ski tips. Skier then vaulted with stiff arms, pivoting on the ski tips, and swung the skis in a 180-degree arc so they landed pointing in a direction opposite to the original direction of travel. In a 360-degree Tip Roll, the skis were whirled around in the air so as to land in the original direction of travel.

Top-entry boot. See overlap boot.

Torsion. The resistance of a ski to being twisted along its length. Skis with high torsional resistance (or torsional stiffness) set an edge into the snow more quickly, especially at the tip and tail. Skis with softer torsion set an edge into the snow less emphatically, and can feel more forgiving. 

Track!  A verbal shout or warning by a descending skier to a person below. “Track left” indicates that the overcoming skier intends to pass the person on his or her left; “Track Right,” on the right. The skier above is responsible for avoiding the skier below.

Tracking. Ability of a ski to hold a line in straight running.

Transition. A change in ski terrain, as in going from a flat area to a steep pitch, or going from steep to flat.

Turntable. A binding heelpiece which holds down the heel while allowing the boot to swivel when the toepiece rotates.

Twin tip. Skis turned up at both ends. A snowboard’s nose and tail are shaped identically, so the board rides equally well in both directions.

Unweighting. Taking varying amounts of weight off of the skis to manipulate and control pressure. There are four types of ‘unweighting’: (1) Up-unweighting, produced at the end of the turn with a rapid upward extension of the body. (2) Down-unweighting, produced by a rapid downward flexion of the body. (3) Terrain-unweighting, produced by using the terrain to help unweight the skis. (4) Rebound-unweighting, produced by the energetic force of the skis ‘decambering’ at the end of a turn. Up-unweighting was the classic technique employed for years to get weight off the skis so that they could be twisted or pivoted in the direction of the turn. It allows a flattened ski to be steered more readily.  

Uphill ski. (See inside ski.)

Vertical drop. The difference in elevation between the top of ski run and the bottom; the difference in elevation between the summit of a ski resort and its base; or between the top of a specific lift and its base. A resort typically advertises its vertical as the elevation change from the top of its highest lift to the base of its lowest.

Wedge turn. (See Snowplow, Christie).

Windmilling. Flailing-about of a ski after the binding releases. At one time, skiers wore “safety straps” so that when a ski released it wouldn’t take off downhill at high speed and become a potential source of injury to other skiers. The trouble was that the windmilling ski attached by the safety strap could seriously injure and cut the falling skier. With the invention of the safety brake  -- a double prong that snaps downward and prevents the released ski from sliding – the safety strap was no longer needed and the danger of windmilling was eliminated.

Worm Turn. At a slow moderate speed, skier headed straight down the fall line, lay back on the skis, rolled over like a log, then stood up to continue downhill.

 

(c)2006 John Fry, all rights reserved, not for reproduction.